300 acre land returnable from Singur project: Trinamool MLA

Singur, Sep 12 (UNI) Singur MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya today said that it was possible to return maximum quantum of land from the small car project area here to the farmers, estimating such quanity to be 300 acres.

Mr Bhattacharya informed that the returnable land was shown to state government representatives--WBIDC Managing Director(MD) Subrata Gupta and District Magistrate(DM) Neelam Meena while visiting the spot yesterday.

The MLA was interacting with the media, prior to leaving for a meeting with the government officials to be held at the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation office at Kolkata. He was accompanied by Singur Krishi Jami Raksha Committee convenor Becharam Manna.

Mr Bhattacharya is heading the four-member committee, scheduled to submit its report on Sunday after doing a survey of returnable land in Singur. The other members are Mr Gupta and Ms Meena from the government side besides, Mr Manna and Mr Bhattacharya representing the opposition.

The committee was constituted following a conciliatory meeting, between Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee at the Raj Bhavan on September seven.

''We think it is possible to return 300 acres of land from the Tata Motors' small car project area and we have accordingly placed our proposal before the officials. The latter said they would consider. However, no assurance has been given in this regard,'' Mr Bhattacharya said.

He voiced his optimism over reaching an ''amicable solution'' over the Singur land row.

According to him, in case the committee could not submit the complete report within the scheduled time-frame, it would place forth its interim report and plea more time for completion.

Meanwhile, Tata Motors General Manager Dilip Sengupta categorically pointed out that the company did specify the amount of land to be earmarked for collateral units, adding it only demanded the ancillary units be kept adjacent to the Nano plant.

Incidentally, the WBIDC had earmarked 290 acres in the Singur project for ancillary units and out of the total 55 vendors proposed by the corporation, 23 had taken permissive possession and got their building plans sanctioned.

UNI XC-SB PL KLC/DB1818